Bennett Oghifo

A real estate company, PWAN Plus, has said that it pays landowners, collects Deeds of Assignment, and processes Governor’s Consent for all its estates in the country.

They also said they have their share of challenges like every other business in Nigeria, but that they tackle these challenges head-on.

Professor Julius Oyedemi, the Managing Director/CEO of PWAN Plus Business Concerns Ltd, owners of all Cedarwood Estates in Nigeria stated this while debunking claims that they owe landowners, among other things.

Prof. Oyedemi said I was a founding chief servant of this organisation, PWAN Plus Business Concerns Limited, the owners of Cedarwood Estates all across Nigeria. It’s eight years plus as of today that we’ve been in this business. We are an affiliate member of the PWAN Group. Under the PWAN Group, we have 63 affiliate companies that are independent, registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission. And the PWAN Group is a group of companies bound by integrity. The PWAN Group is 13 years in the real estate market here in Nigeria.

“First, I want to admit the fact that there is no business without challenges. We all are Nigerians. We know how challenging running a business in Nigeria can be in an environment where you are not given the enabling support. But what is the vision of PWAN Group? The vision of PWAN Group is to empower as many Nigerians by making their dream a reality. I want to say it openly here that PWAN feeds thousands of people. PWAN has taken thousands of people out of the street through this real estate network marketing idea.” 

He presented many Deeds of Assignment, saying, “We all know that for you to enjoy transfer of ownership in real estate, you must have your Deeds of Assignment. We have been running this firm for eight years and we have several cedarwood estates. And for the purpose of the two he mentioned, I didn’t just come with two Deed of Assignment. I came with over 80% of all the Deeds of Assignment for all the estates we have purchased. This is the Deed of Assignment, duly signed by those who sold to us. We have for Cedarwood Park and for Cedarwood Gardens, as well. These are transfer of ownership duly signed by families to us.

“And for benefit of doubt to all our customers out there, most of the properties they bought from us were fully paid for. These are the Deeds of Agreement. This Cedarwood Court Estate is fully paid for. This Fairfield by Cedarwood, fully paid for. Cedarwood Bay, fully paid for. Cedarwood Maisonette apartments Ikoyi, fully paid for. This comes with the Governor’s Consent. We have perfected the Governor’s Consent.

“Cedarwood phase one, our first estate, fully paid for. Phase two, fully paid for. Cedarwood Luxury, Ajayi Apata. This is where I live. People live in our estates. I live in my own estates. It is very uncommon. For eight years, we have livable estates. And I’m glad to say that. 

“We have Ajayi Apata, this is also Ajayi Apata, fully paid for, Maisonette apartment. These are beauties. Metro City by Cedarwood, fully paid for. Twin Town by Cedarwood, fully paid for. Cedarwood Heights, fully paid for. Cedarwood Heights, we bought from several families. Cedarwood Vistas, fully paid for. Autograph Beach by Cedarwood, fully paid for. Vista 2. These are many more.” 

He said, “These are all and many more Deeds that are not even here. Now, these are the Deeds, we just got this now in Lagos State, if you must go for title perfection, in this dispensation of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, you must get this form. Lagos State Government Governor’s Office, Land Bureau, Private Sector Developers Programme, Application Form. Now, before you even get this form, you must have gone through processes that the land is not committed, government is not interested in that parcel of land. And these are the forms we have gotten for more title perfection. 

“I’m not admitting that we might not or we do not have one or two issues. But I make sure as the chief servant of PWAN Plus, owners of Cedarwood Estate, that I’m always at the forefront of my issues. And for every estate where we have issues, we communicate to customers. For all of the estates we’ve had issues, we’ve written them.” He presented emails, saying, “These are emails sent to customers. Areas where we have issues. And not just mail sent to them, we profile them with a swap option. What is swap option? This is real estate. If this position is not, is having an issue, we have acquired this position, please, we are moving you here. We are not fraudsters. And our customers know all of this. So, if any customer maybe is aggrieved, maybe that customer has not done enough to reach out to us. Thank God we are here. We have physical office. So that somebody will say, oh, they don’t have an office. We don’t know how to reach out to them.

“I’m just here to debunk that false information. These are letters. These are email copies. I’m still going to show you footages of work done in some of these estates. these are allocation letters, these are surveys, because you cannot give surveys to customers when they’ve not been physically allocated. And I can tell you, because I’ve been the one on the affairs of PWAN Plus, we’re doing our best to give good customer service to our clients. We’re doing our best.”

He said, “To set the records straight, Cedarwood Park (200 Plots) and Cedarwood Gardens (300 Plots) are among the first set of estates introduced into the market and sold in the year 2017-2018. Prior to the

acquisition of the lands, the lands were duly charted and confirmed to be free from any government acquisition/commitment and any known encumbrances.

The indigenous owners of the lands- Olorunishola & Alone Families, respectively, were indeed fully paid for the lands and each executed a Deed of Assignment and Form 1C (Application for Approval of a Subsequent Transaction to a Grant of Right of Occupancy) as far back as 2017/2018 by their duly accredited representatives.

The individual families had also applied for Village Excision which at that time under the immediate past administration in Lagos State, was a valid way of securing title on family or communal lands. The file numbers for those applications for excision were clearly communicated in our pre-contract agreement (Subscription Form & Frequently Asked Questions) which every subscriber had the opportunity to read and sign before making purchase and payment.

“However, upon the coming on board of the new administration, Excision applications were suspended and the government came up with government allocation in private developers’ schemes. Hence, Cedarwood Park & Gardens were mapped out by the government amongst other neighbouring properties in the Idea Private Developers’ Scheme.

The cost of re-acquiring the lands (which had already been fully paid for, fenced and massively sandfilled for a stretch of over 1km because the lands are water-logged), far exceeded the purchase and selling price of the land hence our inability to make any meaningful progress with the process.

“As a company whose foundation is built on the core values of accountability, responsibility, integrity, service and excellence, we had, prior to this situation, communicated to subscribers and realtors about the need to effect swaps to neighbouring estates in line with the indemnity clause in our

contract of sales, due to the wet topography of the estate and the cost-intensive sandfilling which was a much-needed prerequisite for physical allocation. The sandfilling was necessary to conduce external and internal access to the estates.

Prior to this time, more than 50% of subscribers in both estates had been allocated in line with the sandfilling milestones and had been issued individual survey plans and Deeds of Assignments. This is contrary to the false claims that PWAN only sells receipts. A simple check of our subscription form will reveal that PWAN Plus issues Deed of Assignment and Survey Plans to individual subscribers

with which they can subsequently obtain Governor’s Consent.

“As of today, more than 75% of subscribers in the two estates have either been swapped to better locations in the circumference of Cedarwood Park & Gardens or in the case of their rejection of the swap offer, they have been refunded the full amount they paid for the land. Some of the subscribers we swapped under this arrangement have commenced building in the locations they were allocated.

“To all our subscribers and potential subscribers out there, I want to reiterate in my capacity that PWAN is not a fraudulent company. I or any director in PWAN is not a fraudster. We don’t have any account of such.

We are not in this business to defraud anybody. We’re in this business with our spirit, soul and body to protect our customers’ investments. And that’s what we’ve been doing since the past 13 years as PWAN Group and eight years as PWAN Plus. I’m still the voice behind PWAN Plus.” 

Caption: L-R: Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University, Gareth Doherty; Associate Professor of Global Sustainable Development and Director of Research for School of Cross Faculty Studies, University of Warwick, Feng Mao; Prof. Moises Lino e Silva, of the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil; Prof. Rotimi Fasan (UNIOSUN); caretaker of Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi; Prof. John Agbonifo, Director, GASDI, UNIOSUN;  a representative of Special Guest of Honour, Dr Thomas Olaleye Ogungbangbe; and  Prince Ojo Ejigbo, at the fifth International Sustainable Dialogue (ISDD), organised by Global Affairs and Sustainable Development Institute (GASDI), Osun State University, Osogbo… recently 

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